The wedding dinner at the start of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary is very eloquently written, and you can taste the pork on your lips. It's not a book devote to food, but the incidental meals are quite good.

I am rereading the fabulous but weird book by john Lancaster, "A debt to Pleasure." As the New Yorker described it: "A novel maquerating as an essay as masquerading as a cookbook and it manages to combine the virtues of all three." The writer has been constantly been compared to Nobokov. I will be off to France soon and haven't been here and elsewhere because my dog, my loved one died._________________Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly
..................................MFK Fisher

I like the descriptions in Bridget Jones´s diary where she twice attempts to cook dinner for friends. Once a birtday dinner party when she wants to make shepherd´s pie and steps into the pans of mash on the floor in shoes from Pieds à terre "Pieds à pommes de terre, more like". And the other time she tries to cook according to Marco Pierre White and ends up with blue soup, omelette and marmalade... It is just hilarious!

Both have great descriptions of the food in France._________________Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly
..................................MFK Fisher

cigalechanta ~ The Debt to Pleasure...you reminded me of it...I'll reread it! How I can remember picking it up..in the bookstore...the feel of the cover..the writing in gold..embossed ....

and the sheer joy of reading...those pages..quickly...

ummmmmmmmmm merci...now where the hell is it! not in the laundry for sure... oh for some order...

there's food in the Brokeback Mountain story..._________________"I've never accepted the external appearance of things as the whole truth. The world is much more elaborate than the nerves of our eye can tell us." - James Gleeson

I have been reading the c&z forums for months at my not-so-exciting job, and always want to post, but get a little shy... that is, until I saw the thread about books and food-- I'm a serious book lover (hence my name...) and had to speak up.

Though I am always noticing food in books I read, I think the most memorable would have to be the meals described in the Little House on the Prairie books I read as a little girl-- all their meals, even the simple bread-and-milk-in-a-bowl, seemed so adventurous and exotic (I guess by nature of being eaten on the prairie...) Everytime my mom makes beef stew, in fact, I pretend just for a minute that I'm laura... mmm..._________________A good book is like an old friend.

My first taste in literature was Peter Rabbit and his camomile tea!_________________Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly
..................................MFK Fisher

I look forward to reading more 'n more of your posts! each "new postergal/guy" enriches this site...

as you have..

customary hugs

there's a plate on our kitchen wall....Peter Rabbit and his tea...and his caring mother...._________________"I've never accepted the external appearance of things as the whole truth. The world is much more elaborate than the nerves of our eye can tell us." - James Gleeson

Tips for the syrup in snow - from a New England born & bred girl: The snow and the air should be very cold. This helps the syrup not only set, but crystalize a little. REAL maple syrup must be used. I'm sure Mrs. Butterworth is a very nice lady and has her job to do in life, (entertaining pubescent boys at breakfast) but when your only ingredient is syrup, you need the full flavor of the real deal. I prefer dark amber, as it has more flavor and nuance.

Doing this is one of my favorite childhood memories. Nothing more pure than essence of tree on frozen water!

Erin wrote:

Oh Lexi! Now you have me thinking, I remember having that told to me as a child. I wish I could remember where. I may have to do a bit of research. Was it called, "How To Make Stone Soup", or am I just making that up?
I was just thinking of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and the description of making maple candy. I lived in Washington so we didn't get very much snow so I never had much luck. I would set a pie pan out to catch some snow and pour in some Mrs. Butterworths Syrup and end up with a goopy slightly chilly mess. The worst part was when my long pretty hair went into the pan, my mom was not a happy lady. I always seemed to get into mischief.

I have to agree with Isabel about syrup. I know I will always get a strange look whenever I eat at the dining facility at my workplace because when I choose to eat French toast for breakfast, I reach into my bag and take out my bottle of Real Maple Syrup. They don't even have Mrs. Buttersworth, just that nasty, ten gallon jug, commercial syrup. Oh, the horror. _________________Live as if to die tomorrow. Learn as if to live forever.
Mahatma Gandhi

Maple syrup..real..poured on our Pancake Tuesday pancakes this evening..one of the Canadian rowing team from the Sydney Olympics gave me a tin she'd brought with her...

a magnificent treat.._________________"I've never accepted the external appearance of things as the whole truth. The world is much more elaborate than the nerves of our eye can tell us." - James Gleeson

on the lines of maple syrup and literature, does anyone remember that old children's book "cloudy with a chance of meatballs"? It was super silly, but lots of fun to pretend, as a little girll, that there was actually a land where you could catch maple syrup raindrops on your tongue.

I'm also reminded of the scene in To Kill a Mockingbird when Scout invites Walter Cunningham over for lunch, and he pours the molasses over all the food. Syrup had always been a treat for me, I remember being so surprised when my mom (literature teacher extraordinaire) explained to me that was something poor sharecroppers did to cover up spoiled food.

Who would have thought there were so many literary connections to syrup?_________________A good book is like an old friend.

Mmm maple syrup. My parents have a pretty nice sugar bush on their property back in Ontario. My parents better bring me a really big jug when they come out this summer. They didn't get much made last year (they were away for most of the sap run), and my sister who is a major maple junkie got all the extra (not that there's ever really extra).

But back to books. I tend to pick up anything that has an obvious food theme, many which have been mentioned here. Like water for chocolate, Chocolate and Debt to pleasure are a few of my favorites. The mention of the Little House books brought to mind the books all little Canadian girls grow up on - Anne of Green Gables and the sequels, or in fact anything by L.M. Montgomery (I actually prefered the Emily series). There were several fun episodes while Anne learned to cook, but the highlights had to be feeding her "bosom friend" currant wine in place of raspberry codial and getting her drunk, and at the last minute, preventing the serving of a steamed pudding with a sauce that a mouse had drowned in. Then there was her tragic romantic story being turned into a baking powder advertisement. There is also a scene in one book when she's away at college when she and her roomates discuss how reading Dickens makes them hungry because of all the food (Pickwick Papers in particular).

Do you think these older books have more about cooking and eating than most modern novels because the process took up so much more time than it does now?

Incidentally, my favorite food memory of the Little House series is in the Long Winter (?) when they resorted to eating the seeds for spring planting. They ground it and made a gruel fit for Sarape!_________________Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon. - The Dalai Lama